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Presented with a project whose complexities promised to take him to a whole new level of operation, North Carolina watershaper Frank Bowman soon saw a need to assemble a team of experts to support him in matching his clients’ lofty expectations. The imported talent – a trio of Californians familiar to anyone who reads this magazine – gave Bowman all the support he’s needed to set things up for a brilliant success.
Collective Effort
It's a tale of two visions.   One contingent in the family wanted a formal, architectural pool that would reflect the geometry of the home.  The other wanted to borrow the natural look of the lake and rock formations that flowed down the sloping backyard.  Such divergent themes are generally difficult to blend into a coherent design, but I managed to do it with a little help from some friends. The project, which involves placing a formal, geometric pool atop a formation of artificial rock that looms over a grotto and lagoon-like pool below, is still under construction at this writing.  At this point, I'd have to say that the results should be just as spectacular as the design process was arduous. My company is based in Raleigh, N.C., which, although it is hardly a backwater, is not exactly at the epicenter of watershape design or construction expertise.  To integrate this diverse clutch of elements, I felt a need to
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Presented with a project whose complexities promised to take him to a whole new level of operation, North Carolina watershaper Frank Bowman soon saw a need to assemble a team of experts to support him in matching his clients’ lofty expectations. The imported talent – a trio of Californians familiar to anyone who reads this magazine – gave Bowman all the support he’s needed to set things up for a brilliant success.
Collective Effort
It's a tale of two visions.   One contingent in the family wanted a formal, architectural pool that would reflect the geometry of the home.  The other wanted to borrow the natural look of the lake and rock formations that flowed down the sloping backyard.  Such divergent themes are generally difficult to blend into a coherent design, but I managed to do it with a little help from some friends. The project, which involves placing a formal, geometric pool atop a formation of artificial rock that looms over a grotto and lagoon-like pool below, is still under construction at this writing.  At this point, I'd have to say that the results should be just as spectacular as the design process was arduous. My company is based in Raleigh, N.C., which, although it is hardly a backwater, is not exactly at the epicenter of watershape design or construction expertise.  To integrate this diverse clutch of elements, I felt a need to
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As a designer and builder who has tackled more than his share of complex projects, David Tisherman knows a worthy challenge when he sees it. Such was the case with the sprawling pool, spa and waterfeatures pictured here: Bringing it all together called for a busy travel schedule punctuated by foul weather, supply and labor issues, a need for constant supervision and, perhaps most important, a profound and unusual level of patience.
The Art of Finishing
The art of watershaping so often is all about the art of finishing.  Certainly, every stage of any project is important, but the final steps leading to completion are what make most designs come to life.    The project pictured here, which I've covered in five of my "Details" columns during the past couple years, has been an undertaking of extraordinary scale and mammoth complexity.  As I mentioned frequently in those columns (November 2003, January and February 2004 and January and February 2005), the lion's share of the project management fell to my east coast partner and dear friend Kevin Fleming, who truly has endured a baptism of Tisherman-style fire as he
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As a designer and builder who has tackled more than his share of complex projects, David Tisherman knows a worthy challenge when he sees it. Such was the case with the sprawling pool, spa and waterfeatures pictured here: Bringing it all together called for a busy travel schedule punctuated by foul weather, supply and labor issues, a need for constant supervision and, perhaps most important, a profound and unusual level of patience.
The Art of Finishing
The art of watershaping so often is all about the art of finishing.  Certainly, every stage of any project is important, but the final steps leading to completion are what make most designs come to life.    The project pictured here, which I've covered in five of my "Details" columns during the past couple years, has been an undertaking of extraordinary scale and mammoth complexity.  As I mentioned frequently in those columns (November 2003, January and February 2004 and January and February 2005), the lion's share of the project management fell to my east coast partner and dear friend Kevin Fleming, who truly has endured a baptism of Tisherman-style fire as he
Read More
The art and craft of building wooden bridges has been overtaken through the years, with steel and reinforced-concrete structures almost entirely supplanting them for the past 100 years or so. But designer/builder Dan Moosman has bucked the modern trend, providing his clients with Craftsman-style wooden bridges that now grace landscapes across the country and make strong aesthetic statements wherever they’re placed.
Spanning Space and Time
Bridges have been important to humanity for thousands of years.  They've provided avenues of travel between disconnected spaces and have, as a result, been critical to commerce, settlement, warfare, travel and even poetry and literature.  To this day, they are iconic in certain cities or regions (think Paris or New York), and there has always been a distinctly romantic air that accompanies their obvious utility. My relationship with bridges in general (and with wooden bridges in particular) began during my childhood near Nebraska's Niobrara River.  The big, load-bearing structures crafted to span that river in the late-19th and early-20th centuries absolutely fascinated me. I'd spend hours climbing on those old structures and was amazed by the way they creaked as their tension and compression members supported truly formidable weights.  At the same time, I came to value the presence of
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The art and craft of building wooden bridges has been overtaken through the years, with steel and reinforced-concrete structures almost entirely supplanting them for the past 100 years or so. But designer/builder Dan Moosman has bucked the modern trend, providing his clients with Craftsman-style wooden bridges that now grace landscapes across the country and make strong aesthetic statements wherever they’re placed.
Spanning Space and Time
Bridges have been important to humanity for thousands of years.  They've provided avenues of travel between disconnected spaces and have, as a result, been critical to commerce, settlement, warfare, travel and even poetry and literature.  To this day, they are iconic in certain cities or regions (think Paris or New York), and there has always been a distinctly romantic air that accompanies their obvious utility. My relationship with bridges in general (and with wooden bridges in particular) began during my childhood near Nebraska's Niobrara River.  The big, load-bearing structures crafted to span that river in the late-19th and early-20th centuries absolutely fascinated me. I'd spend hours climbing on those old structures and was amazed by the way they creaked as their tension and compression members supported truly formidable weights.  At the same time, I came to value the presence of
Read More
As is the case in every aspect of the design of spaces intended for public use, the development of lighting systems for parks, plazas, resorts or historical sites requires increased attention to a series of creativity-thwarting factors including cost, durability and safety, says lighting-design guru Janet Lennox Moyer. Here, she offers insights into what it takes to go beyond those basic needs and truly bring public places to life once the sun goes down. (Photo: Lighting by Randy Burkett Lighting Design; photo by William Mathis)
Public Light
When we work in public settings, the basic demand on lighting designers is for straightforward fixture layouts capable of providing enduring effects and requiring minimal ongoing attention.  That doesn't sound particularly exciting - and it's not, unless the lighting designer uses it as a baseline and reaches above and beyond.Parks, plazas, resorts and historical sites (among many others) are all spaces that really should come alive at night, but their lighting designs often run counter to that vitality by being so utilitarian that they spark boredom rather than energy.  It's easy to understand why this happens:  Because such spaces play host to high levels of traffic and often multiple uses, they demand lighting treatments that
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As is the case in every aspect of the design of spaces intended for public use, the development of lighting systems for parks, plazas, resorts or historical sites requires increased attention to a series of creativity-thwarting factors including cost, durability and safety, says lighting-design guru Janet Lennox Moyer. Here, she offers insights into what it takes to go beyond those basic needs and truly bring public places to life once the sun goes down. (Photo: Lighting by Randy Burkett Lighting Design; photo by William Mathis)
Public Light
When we work in public settings, the basic demand on lighting designers is for straightforward fixture layouts capable of providing enduring effects and requiring minimal ongoing attention.  That doesn't sound particularly exciting - and it's not, unless the lighting designer uses it as a baseline and reaches above and beyond.Parks, plazas, resorts and historical sites (among many others) are all spaces that really should come alive at night, but their lighting designs often run counter to that vitality by being so utilitarian that they spark boredom rather than energy.  It's easy to understand why this happens:  Because such spaces play host to high levels of traffic and often multiple uses, they demand lighting treatments that
Read More
During the past decade or so, fountains that feature rotating granite balls have become familiar in myriad settings, from theme parks to upscale backyards. The trick of floating weighty rock spheres on thin sheets of water in rounded sockets is actually a simple one, says fountain expert Anne Gunn, but it’s nonetheless an effect that is utterly fascinating to children and adults who enjoy moving hugely heavy objects with the slightest of touches.
Spheres of Influence
If ever there was an example of the power of simplicity, it's been the rise of what we call floating-granite-ball fountains.  They've been around since the early 1990s and are now found in a range of commercial and even residential settings. I hadn't ever seen one when I joined HydroDramatics back in 1996, but I do know that soon after I started we began receiving a steady flow on inquiries about them - and it wasn't long before we received our first commission for a floating sphere for a major automobile manufacturer in Detroit. As has been the case every time a prospect has asked about one of these fountains since then, school administrators wanted
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During the past decade or so, fountains that feature rotating granite balls have become familiar in myriad settings, from theme parks to upscale backyards. The trick of floating weighty rock spheres on thin sheets of water in rounded sockets is actually a simple one, says fountain expert Anne Gunn, but it’s nonetheless an effect that is utterly fascinating to children and adults who enjoy moving hugely heavy objects with the slightest of touches.
Spheres of Influence
If ever there was an example of the power of simplicity, it's been the rise of what we call floating-granite-ball fountains.  They've been around since the early 1990s and are now found in a range of commercial and even residential settings. I hadn't ever seen one when I joined HydroDramatics back in 1996, but I do know that soon after I started we began receiving a steady flow on inquiries about them - and it wasn't long before we received our first commission for a floating sphere for a major automobile manufacturer in Detroit. As has been the case every time a prospect has asked about one of these fountains since then, school administrators wanted
Read More
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